For years, Sue Hen referred to as the pictures on the courtroom as a degree guard. Now, the legendary WNBA star shall be doing it off the courtroom for USA Basketball.
On Thursday, Hen was appointed USA Basketball’s first managing director for the ladies’s nationwide crew.
For years, the ladies’s nationwide crew roster and training workers had been chosen by a committee.
However that can change transferring ahead as Hen will lead these choices, beginning with subsequent 12 months’s World Cup in Berlin.
“I know what I bring, I know what my perspective gives, and I know what my experience can provide, and there’s also things that I need to learn,” Hen mentioned throughout a press convention at Nike NYC Headquarters in Manhattan. “There’s also things I want to talk to other people, pick brains, maybe ask people what their experiences have been like, so that combination will probably be my next however many months.”
Hen, a five-time Olympic champion, wasn’t initially within the alternative when USA Basketball first approached her about it shortly after she retired from enjoying in 2022.
Grant Hill, who held the place on the lads’s aspect from 2021 to 2024, has been recruiting Hen to hitch USA Basketball as an government for a while now.
His efforts bought to the purpose the place Hen referred to as him an “annoying older brother.”
However as time handed, Hen opened as much as the thought.
“The exact amount of months, years, when they first brought this up is a little blurry, but I hadn’t been retired that long, and I still very much felt like a player,” Hen mentioned. “I hadn’t really made that adjustment in my mind. So the idea of picking a team, I was like, ‘What? I don’t want any part of that.’ So I think just time naturally did that, but also talking to Grant really played a big role in just making me see things in a different way.”
Liberty star Breanna Stewart, who performed alongside Hen for a number of seasons in Seattle, believes she’s an ideal match for this position.
“Not only has she played [and] she has the player perspective, but she’s watching all the time,” Stewart mentioned after apply. “She knows the best pieces to kind of put the puzzle together, and I’m happy for her and happy that I’ll be able to work alongside her.”
Stewart mentioned she as soon as once more desires to go well with up for Group USA in subsequent 12 months’s World Cup. She additionally has her eyes set on the 2028 Summer time Video games in Los Angeles.
Hen is assuming the managing director position at a time when there’s loads of younger star energy within the pipeline.
She mentioned she’s open to combine Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers into the ladies’s nationwide crew pool forward of the 2028 Olympics.
“Any player that is interested in being part of the national team, of course, is welcome,” Hen mentioned. “You simply need expertise and also you need to see which expertise once they come collectively goes to suit. In fact, Caitlin. In fact, Paige. I imply, the names go on — you need them to be concerned as shortly as attainable to get comfy.
“USA Basketball, from a player standpoint, can be an uncomfortable situation because we don’t have a lot of training time and you’re asked to do possibly, potentially, a different role, and you’re trying to do that on the fly.”
